SmartStream

Over the past year, the price of streaming live TV has been on the rise. It’s time to question whether cutting the cord — canceling the subscription to your cable/satellite/telecom provider — will really save you money.

In a star-studded event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino, CA, Apple yesterday announced plans for a revamped Apple TV app, a new streaming service, and original content it is producing in cooperation with a slew of A-list Hollywood directors and actors.

Samsung has stopped selling Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray players in the U.S. Could this be one more sign that physical media will ultimately disappear, only to be replaced by streaming movies and TV?

The lights will go out on UltraViolet on July 31 when the cloud-based movie-rights locker/library will be discontinued. UltraViolet’s demise became inevitable when Movies Anywhere launched in 2017 with a greater number of movie studio and streaming partners. While Movies Anywhere has most of the same partners as UltraViolet, users will still want to take steps to be sure all of their movies will be available after July.

If there is one word that describes the streaming innovations of 2018, it’s “convenience.” This year, more media players have added voice control through Google Assistant and Amazon Echo smart speakers, or voice remotes with built-in microphones. As live and recorded TV apps are being added to media players, users can now access all the content they want to watch without switching from one device to another.

The release of the Fire TV Recast DVR highlights Amazon’s effort to offer a complete streaming solution. The Recast is a network connected tuner and DVR that adds live TV and recording to Fire TV’s current offering of streaming apps and Amazon Prime premium channels like STARZ, HBO, Showtime, and more. It’s everything a cord-cutter could want.

Although the Fire TV Cube was released by Amazon in June, it has not yet received the recognition or hype it deserves. The Cube is a cross between a smart speaker and a Fire TV media player. Like an Amazon Echo speaker, the Cube can hear commands from across the room and has a built-in speaker to play back its reply. Like a Fire TV media player, it streams from all the same apps as other Fire TV models and can play 4K HDR content.

In line with Roku’s goal of keeping entertainment simple, the company is turning its sights on adding better quality audio to Roku TVs. This month, Roku is releasing wireless stereo speakers that work in conjunction with any Roku TV.

A number of streaming media players have recently been upgraded to include basic voice control via Amazon Alexa and Google Home, so I tested both systems on several players to see how close we’ve come to true hands-free control.